There was irony
in the situation. Hitherto, he had despised the daily press and the
journalists that supplied it with matter, chiefly, it must be
confessed, because of the slatings he had received through these
organs of information; and he had revenged himself for the attacks by
pillorying the journalistic profession in his novels. Lousteau, Finot,
Blondet, and other members of the press appear in his pages as
unprincipled men, only too willing to sell themselves to the highest
bidder. Of course, such retaliation carried with it injustice; and men
of high principle, like Jules Janin, resented this prejudiced
condemnation of a class for no better reason than its having black
sheep, which existed in every circle, trade and profession. Now, Janin
had an easy task in convicting of inconsistency an accuser who, since
it suited his purpose, was fain to belong to the press brotherhood.
The real derogation, however, was not in Balzac's turning
_feuilletoniste_, but in his slipping into the manner and his adopting
the artifices that he blamed so unsparingly in Eugene Sue and
Alexandre Dumas. Not to speak of his falling off in accurate
observation, he inserted more and more padding in his fiction; the
aridly didactic encroached upon the artist's creation; and, to make
the arid portions go down with his readers, he spiced them with
exciting episodes and all the stage tricks common in the serial story.
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